


Family aren't a crowd

by thunderbird_dragon



Category: Thunderbirds, thunderbirds are go
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:13:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21876457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderbird_dragon/pseuds/thunderbird_dragon
Summary: John Tracy is used to being on his own, but not perhaps this alone.The Earth is disappearing away from TB5 fast and he has no comms with his brothers.They will come, wont they?
Relationships: Brothers - Relationship, Tracy Brothers - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	Family aren't a crowd

**Author's Note:**

> this was my TAG Secret Santa for 2017, hope they liked it :-)

**Family aren't a crowd**

John could lose hours watching his stars.

In those peaceful times when no calls were coming in to disturb his tranquillity, he could simply devote himself to the heavens around him on Thunderbird Five. Eos knew and understood his need for silence and would monitor all global transmissions, letting him know if something needed his attention, but otherwise leaving him to enjoy his down time.

Not that to be honest, he ever actually just day-dreamed. His mind was continually pondering those distant points of light, calculating and recalculating the theorem he had spent years writing and publishing papers on. Nothing really escaped his fascination or his notice. But he did relax.

The stars didn’t crowd in on him, they were quiet companions. His preferred company.

It had been over an hour since Eos had last reported, absently he looked across to check the time - oh nearly two hours! He went to get up from his favourite viewing perch. “Eos, has there….” A dull thud shook TB5 and knocked him off his feet. “Eos! What was that?.... Eos?!”

A hint of smoke, burnt relays and wiring, suddenly entered the filtered air. “EOS!”

A light array here and there blinked out along the lines that lit the station. “Thunderbird Five to Tracy Island – I have a situation!”

“What is it?” Brain’s voice, calm and direct.

“Not too sure yet, Brains, but I’ve lost some relay functions, lights and… and Eos is off-line. I think there was an explosion, I’m not too sure but I felt the jolt.” Something made him check his comms. Twice. “Brains? Brains can you hear me? Tracy Island can you hear me? Anyone?” He looked up at his view of the Earth. “Anyone at all?”

The blue planet glowed beautifully back at him, but silently. “Guess I’m on my own for now then – hope you guys are sending a rescue squad, I’m feeling just a tad more isolated than even I like to be right now!”

He began checking the systems, they seemed to be failing station wide, falling like dominos, one by one by one. He could feel the temperature control was offline. Watched as more lights went out, TB5’s globe fail, the gravity blink out.

“Probably just as well you’re offline too Eos, or you might have been fighting off system corruption too.” He found himself talking to her even though he knew she couldn’t hear him.

There was an uneasy feeling about the movement of TB5. Looking up at the Earth again, he went cold through to his very core, the Earth was further away – considerably further! TB5 was drifting out into space.

There was no way to establish stabilising boosters, all engines were offline.

Uncharacteristically John stopped for a moment – watching his home planet slowly diminish in size – there was a clawing of an emotion that was foreign to him – panic!

They would be coming! He knew it – Alan… probably Scott too – no, for something like this they would _all_ come… probably even Grandma!

They would come for him.

TB5 turned to face the stars pushing the Earth behind her, as a second jolt shook her.

This time it was a violent jolt, rattling and screaming all around John’s position. He took deepening breaths to calm himself – _they would come for him_.

Then all the lights went out.

It took less than 7 minutes for TB3 to launch, in that time every conceivable piece of equipment had been packed into her hold. Brains had had just enough time to assess TB5’s situation, just enough time to see solutions and then to gather what they would need.

John’s brothers had never moved as fast as they did, in total unison they brought everything together.

“Go!” Scott had barked to Alan the second everyone was on board. Grim faces all watched as the youngest amongst them hit the controls and felt the force that separated them from the ground and dragged them out of gravity.

“As I see it, th-there may have been a malfunction, but I think it’s more likely to be sabotage!” Brains was still running numbers, the chances of four major systems failing at one time were slim but what engaged his whole attention was not _how_ it happened but what to do about it! “H-how far off orbit is Thunderbird Five now?”

“Nearly two thousand miles.” Scott sat up front with Alan and spoke through gritted teeth, his hands clasped to his seat in an attempt not to show his fear to the others. How could he have let someone sabotage TB5? He was supposed to be keeping them all safe. Why didn’t something show up on the intel? Had he miss something?

He had clenched up every muscle and ached with worry.

The hand that rested gently on his shoulder was Virgil’s. It was followed by him leaning forward to say into Scott’s ear. “You need to breath there big bro, we’re gonna need you in full working order when we get there, not all screwed up like this.” The words were quiet, no-one else would have heard them over the sound of TB3’s engines roaring. Scott looked round at Virgil who merely raised an eyebrow knowingly. Scott half smiled, yeah okay, yeah he was right. They were on their way. John would be okay. They would get there in time for him.

He placed his hand over Virgil’s tightly in thanks and broadened the smile.

TB5 had begun a slow spin after what John assumed was the first explosion. The spin gained momentum after the second, until TB5 flipped over and over continuously against the natural spin of the gravity ring. The effect was nauseating. His view of the Earth rushed into view every 9 seconds followed closely by a 3.273 second blast of light from the Sun. This was the only light he could now rely. He worked with its on/off pattern, despite his turbulent stomach and disorientated head. Out through the air locks manually and to the damage, starkly illuminated by the flashes of those precious 3.273 seconds of sunlight.

The blasts, and he was sure now that they were both small explosions, had taken out every last bit of the external charging network and most of the solar absorbers, leaving the station’s battery storage units torn to shreds and flailing behind the station’s spin like festival banners.

He had one or two spare units, but this was the whole array, 72 units in all including both back-up systems. No wonder TB5 had cut out so completely.

But there was one high note to his trip onto the outer hull – he could see TB3 steadily making her way towards him. Alan was going to have his work cut out for him docking with the spin – assuming TB5 could be manually docked in her current state.

Aboard TB3 was total silence – not only because the extent of TB5’s damage was now clearly visible to them but also because the all understood Alan’s need to concentrate.

But the kid had this! He knew exactly how to approach, just when to add a boost and from which thruster, he was a total natural. Plus he practiced in every spare moment he had! Yeah - he had this nailed.

Docked manually, they flooded out from the air lock to greet John with questions, hugs of gratitude that he was still alive and instructions as to what equipment they had brought with them and how to utilise it.

Seconds later Virgil, Gordon and Brains were hit with motion sickness. The harsh spin in zero gravity was something none of them had ever trained for, or experienced, before. But there was no time to sit around throwing up in a vacuum bucket, they each had a job assigned to them and just got on with it.

John, Scott and Alan began refitting new battery units, whilst Virgil and Gordon rewired the relays under Brains’ careful eye and MAX did the donkey work of bringing replacement parts out to them.

Looking for the signs of sabotage was left up to Kayo but to everyone’s surprise there was none. Initial careful examination seemed to indicate that TB5 had been struck by a spanner!

Where from she couldn’t tell, it wasn’t one of their own, but it was wedged tightly into the absorber array in such a way as to slowly corrode the absorber skins and start to cause sparks. Where it might have come from was anyone’s guess – a tanker had exploded 4000 miles out from TB5’s position, perhaps the spanner had shot into space from that.

She was just content that it wasn’t sabotage as she looked over her shoulder at her family all working on the outer hull.

This was probably the first time since TB5 was originally built that so many Tracys had been there at one time. Initially there seemed to be no time to reminisce but they each took a second or two occasionally to ponder the vastness of the stars and the beauty of the Earth, no matter how small she looked.

Then John asked Gordon, “Feeling like a fish out of water here, Squid?” as noticing his younger brother watching their blue planet slowly fall away.

“Nah, I kinda get space, not always admittedly, but I’ve got more used to it. It’s sorta like the sea but with no water resistance. Oh and without fish either!” Gordon replied quickly with a grin.

“It’s just as cold though.” Brains chipped in. “And there are micro-organisms swimming in space too!”

“Eweee!” Virgil didn’t like the sound of that too much.

John chuckled, “Yeah well a hundred years ago, a popular thought was that epidemic outbreaks came about from spores of alien microbs, which were able to get through the atmosphere!”

“Thank you for that John!” Scott grinned. “Grandma’s got a cold right now, but I really don’t think I’ll tell her that! How you doing now Brains? Feel any better?”

Totally absorbed in what he had been doing, Brains stopped to reassess how his space sickness was doing for the first time in hours and regretted it immediately, “Ohhh don’t remind me, I’m better not thinking about it!”

Doggedly they worked on together, occasionally chatting, often about an awkward relay to reach or fitting a battery casing but more often just the chatter of a family set on a task that had no option but to be completed.

Seventeen hours later and they called the job finished.

TB5 lit up again reassuringly, her spin slowed (much to Virgil, Brains and Gordon’s joint relief), her heating and life support came back online, but it was the uploading of Eos, her eye blinking as she checked all her systems, that caused the biggest cheer from those aboard.

“Welcome back Eos!” John smiled at her confusion. “I’ll explain all about it later.”

Exhausted, everyone piled into the ring to watch the Earth as TB5 returned to her natural orbit. Alan and Gordon had raided John’s meagre food supplies, rustling up a warming soup and they relaxed for the first time in what seemed like an age to them.

Alan smiled up at his big brother, John had worked through his birthday along with several others, and Alan found himself toying with the idea of calling this a party but guessed they were all too tired for that. He’d just have to be grateful that they were almost all there and safe, (shame Grandma had been too ‘coldie’ to come too).

“Been a while since us boys have all been together, John!” Virgil smiled clapping a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Kinda missed you, y’know!”

John had actually been watching the stars, those usual quiet companions of his, every one of them precious to him. He could cope with crowds of stars but people – people he wasn’t so good with. But family – well family aren’t just people are they?

He looked round the assembled family, every one of them happy to have travelled half way across the darkness of space to come to his aid. To rescue him! Yeah, family were different.

“Yeah, I know.” He smiled at each of them, “I kinda miss you all too!”


End file.
